Desaparece el cadaver

PRC produces an enjoyable item here with little funding, a comedic melodrama that successfully incorporates both verbal and visual humour, along with a dollop of suspense, in creating a picture notable for its rare featured performance by veteran supporting actor J. Edward Bromberg, skillful direction, and especially effective scoring, in addition to a clever scenario that benefits from perfect pacing to smoothly advance the action. A whimsical plot requires that scripting, acting, and editing combine equally to avoid mere giddiness, and that is the case here, with Bromberg cast as Henry Kruger, an ethical newspaper publisher who threatens Andy McDonald, his counterpart upon a rival big city (Los Angeles) tabloid, with physical harm after McDonald splashes a nightclub escapade involving Kruger's daughter upon his journal's front page. After the blackmailing McDonald is murdered by one of his victims, his corpse is chased from the unsuspecting Kruger's automobile trunk to a series of makeshift hiding places, with humorous perplexity resulting from Kruger's attempts to avoid being implicated in the homicide. Director Albert Herman, for his final feature film commission, ably leads his actors in the briskly gaited affair, and manages in fine fashion to balance comedy with sequences of suspense, aided throughout by a splendid score contributed by classically trained Karl Hajos, who adds pages to his prior work from studio stock, seamlessly blending the total into the narrative. Acting is of variable merit, with Frank Jenks winning the Thespic laurels in the role of Kruger's chauffeur and companion, a typically sharply defined performance from him, capitalizing upon his impeccable sense of timing.

PRC was a tiny studio that rented space at larger studios and made their films on a shoestring budget. Generally, when I see a film was made by PRC, I either avoid it or expect it to be, at best, a time-passer. Imagine my surprise when I found I not only liked "The Missing Corpse" but would highly recommend it. It's hard to believe...especially since there are no big name actors and the film is clearly a B-movie, clocking in at only 62 minutes in length!

Henry Kruger owns a newspaper and his greatest nemesis is a rival newspaper owner who takes delight in slandering Kruger. Because of this, Kruger has been known to threaten the guy if he didn't stop harassing him. Imagine Kruger's surprise, then, when he discovers the guy in his trunk...dead! Who did it and how is Kruger going to get rid of the body? Watch this clever film and find out for yourself.

As I said, I really liked this one. This was helped by having Frank Jenks in a supporting role. While few would remember his name, he was very adept at this sort of film and helped make it fun.

Great old movie....if you want humor and a twist in the story, this is a movie to see! Clean in todays standards. Not a waste of time. A peek into the past. A treasure!

This is an Alpha Home Entertainment DVD. It looks worse than a VHS copy, if you remember or herd of VHS, with that Blair Witch steady hand. Everything is really scratchy. You will recognize most of the actors such as J. Edward Bromberg from "Charlie Chan on Broadway" (1937). The story at least the presentation had those holes that you can drive a truck through. It gets slapstick at all the weirdest times.

A newspaper owner, Henry Kruger, threatens to dispatch a rival newspaper owner over an article. The one mistake making this threat was right in front of his chauffeur/friend, Andy McDonald, and the other newspaper owner's assistant/patsy 'Slippery Joe' Clary.

And you guessed it a corpse turns up in Henry's car trunk. Then it is not there. Then it is here and there and not here and there. Now each person sees it and is kind enough not to tell everyone. We know he did it, but no one listens to us.

Mack Hogan (Frank Jenks) as the cabin caretaker is the comic relief as if we needed relief.

The story sorts of works around Egbert (Charles Coleman), a snickering butler that seems to know something but never tells.

Anyway, the film is worth a quick look. If you miss this one you will not be missing much.

If you love bodies being moved, then two better movies are: Arsénico y encaje (1944).

And El tercer tiro (1955).

Newspaper publisher J. Edward Bromberg has a running feud with fellow publisher Paul Guilfoyle. Bromberg doesn't like Guilfoyle publishing pictures of his daughter at nightclubs, and threatens the man, whom he calls a blackmailer. The next day he is to go duck hunting, and so spends the evening practicing with a rifle. The following morning, he is packing supplies in the car chauffeur frank Jenks will drive him in, and discovers Guilfoyle's corpse in there.

It's from a story by Harry O. Hoyt (best remembered for directing the silent The Lost World), and it's a pretty amusing comedy as Bromberg tries to ditch the body with Jenks' help, and keeps failing. Bromberg's reactions are funnier for not being particularly jittery in the face of the nitwits he encounters, from wife Lorell Sheldon to cop Archie Twitchell. It's a nicely layered performance by one of the founders of the Group Theater, and director Albert Herman lets him have his head.